2021 Articles
May 2021
The Heartbeat of the Town
by Bob Corrette
With today’s technology we have instant communication to anywhere around the world. In going back in time, to the early days in Fitzwilliam, the communication to the outside world was limited to newspapers, letters, or travelers who passed through town. The big advancements in communication came with the railroad in 1848 and the telegraph in 1851.
The invention of the telephone was to change the world of communication forever. In July of 1882, Oliver K. Wheelock, owner of the Fitzwilliam Hotel, was licensed to erect poles and run lines for telephone purposes to the Cheshire Railroad station at the Depot. The C.R.R. was connected to the line of the Boston and Northern Telephone Co. of Lowell, Mass. Calls were possible up to seventy-five miles. All calls were placed by name; later numbers were used, and by 1898 there were nine subscribers in town.
Reginald Emerson, Doctor Emerson’s son, said that “the first few telephones in town were to Wheelock’s Hotel, and the Cheshire Hotel, and Parker’s Store and Doctor Emerson’s office in 1897.”
You could call Doctor Emerson from the railroad station from 6 am when the paper train came through, until the night flyer went through at 10:45 pm. Joe Derby was the telegraph and telephone operator at the station.
In 1903, New England Telephone and Telegraph took over the operation with 12 subscribers. Joe Derby moved the Exchange to his house at the Depot.
Fitzwilliam’s population in 1900 was 980 people; the average wage was $0.22 per hour. The cost to have a telephone by 1914 was $1.50 per month. By 1932 there were 140 phones in town, 190 in 1951, and 300 in 1961.
The Selectmen’s office did not have a phone until 1913. If they needed to use a phone they went to Parker’s Store.
In 1913, Bernice Whitcomb went to work for New England Telephone & Telegraph as a telephone operator. Walter and Bernice Whitcomb operated the Exchange from their home (the James Stone 1805 house); in about 1925 they moved to the brick house at the head of the Common where they operated it until 1957 when the phone system became automated.
These early Exchanges were run by people well known to everyone in town. They had to know where the doctor, police, or fire could be contacted. They were the intelligence and message center of the town. It was where all good and bad news passed through the switchboard – the heartbeat of the town.
Today all that human touch has been lost; it is called “progress!”
January 2021
A Town Craftsman: Jacob Felton 1787-1864
by Bob Corrette
As the country grew, the need for furniture also grew. Furniture of all grades, cheap or costly, all had to be made entirely by hand. By the early 180s Ashburnham and Gardner, Mass. became known for making chairs. Gardner alone had over 14 chairmakers.
It is unknown where Fulton learned the chairmaking trade. It is believed he worked at Carter’s Carriage Shop for a time. He started his chair making shop in about 1836. In his shop he had a large number of wood planes and saws, a spring pole lathe and a lathe which ran by a treadmill horse.
The workday was from sunrise to sunset, or about 10 to 12 hours a day, 6 days a week. There were no holidays off. The average wage was about 5 cents per hour or about $3.50 per week; he employed 3 men. Felton also employed several women to do cane seating work. In his inventory of 1837, he had 1000 bundles of chair cane which he got in Boston, Mass. at 7 cents per bundle.
He sold wood scraps and shaving for fuel. He sold chairs from his shop and at Levi Haskell’s store (now the Blake House Historical Society Museum) and to other chairmakers in Ashburnham and Gardner, Mass. The average chair sold for about $1.00 to $1.25. He also made pine wood seats for “Windsor chairs.” He transported chairs to George Miller in Boston to be painted. The cost to transport some 250 to 325 chairs per year was 4 cents per chair.
In 1839 his shop and house caught fire and became a total loss. His shop was located where Dr. Emerson lived, where Charles Massin now resides. In 1840 he moved to Quincy, Ill. where he died in 1864. The Fitzwilliam Historical Society has some of his chairs on display.